Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Caught reading past bedtime

DD has a book light she uses when DS is ready to go to sleep and we turn the lights off. I avoid letting her use the iPhone at night because it really keeps me up so I agree it adds to the problem; I sometimes let her use my kindle with its light. Yes, sometimes she's up til ten but mostly she'll feel the need for sleep (early riser) and let the story go til morning. Had a hard time last night in the middle if the exciting conclusion of Prisoner of Azkaban! I helped her find a good chapter break with no cliff hanger but mostly she's in charge. We do follow a fairly early bedtime because we know she'll want a good chunk of reading time (and life is generally much happier all day long when she has a good book she's enjoying even just at night.)

I caught DD with her iPad on past bedtime. I thought she was playing a game but she was using the light from the iPad to read a book.


Kids these days...

THAT is HILARIOUS!

For the people in our family who have sleep issues (insomnia, trouble settling down, etc), we've found that using the bed only for sleep is best. It really does depend on the person and how well they sleep. So for DS, we discourage reading/working in bed (and yes, I will put books in time out at night if necessary). For DD, we don't mind as much (since she doesn't seem to have sleeping issues, and self-regulates better).

Several years ago we removed the light switch from DS's bedroom and replaced it with a timer. This way even if he does stay up late or wake up in the middle of the night, the light in his bedroom won't stay on for longer than an hour.

We got DS6 a booklight last summer to deal with this. We have a fairly strict bedtime but the kids can read for as long as they'd like. We did have to take the book away a few times when he was reading Harry Potter at 11pm and fighting us about going to school the next morning, but for the most part he passes out after a while.

Unless he is sick or really exhausted, we have to remove DS' glasses from his room to keep him from reading. Once they are gone, he doesn't really like to read.

A post I recently made on another thread may be of some significance:

"It may be worth noting that myopia correlates positively with IQ, and that this correlation is not extrinsic (i.e., not the result of cross-assortative mating). This is confirmed because studies have found that the correlation between myopia and IQ still exists among gifted and non-gifted siblings. One can not say the same for, e.g., the correlation between height and IQ, which exists in the general population but is nonexistent among gifted and non-gifted siblings. In other words, the correlation between height and IQ only exists because both height and intelligence are valued by society, and thus tall and intelligent people are more likely to procreate."

I should also note that myopia is essentially caused by a single gene that codes for the shape of the eyeball, which suggests that any such genetic relationship between myopia and high intelligence is pleitropic in nature. Classrooms allocated to gifted students, for example, show rates of myopia three to five times higher than that of the general population. The belief that excess time spent reading and the like results in a diminution of eyesight among the gifted has been essentially defunct since the 1980's, and the vast majority of extant researchers agree that the relationship is genetic, rather than environmental, in nature.